


Mixed Emotions

by aroseandapen



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), F/M, Fluff, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroseandapen/pseuds/aroseandapen
Summary: Tenko ends up partnering up with Rantaro for a school project. She finds out that for a terrible male, he’s surprisingly sweet.
Relationships: Amami Rantaro/Chabashira Tenko
Comments: 5
Kudos: 67





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was for a request on my blog [aroseandapen](http://aroseandapen.tumblr.com). The prompt was “Because I love you god damn it!” for Rantaro x Tenko, and I enjoyed writing it a lot.

It hadn’t been Tenko’s first choice to partner up with Rantaro. Or second, or her tenth choice even. The last thing she wanted was to spend time with a _man_ , at the risk of getting close to one and having them touch her in inappropriate and unwanted ways.

Unfortunately, the other girls in her class had already partnered up with someone else. If her partner had to be a male in that case, then at least Rantaro wasn’t as bad as males came. He was also the only guy with the guts to partner up with her, which added more points in his favor.

And if he _did_ try and touch her, then she could take him down with her Neo-Aikido.

He knew her strength well, too. Tenko had, after all, thrown him to the ground several times before. On one occasion, he’d even laughed it off, apologizing for scaring her. Then he’d stood, brushing himself off, and had given her such a smile that Tenko’s heart thumped loudly in her chest. She didn’t understand the feeling, but it made her feel odd and warm.

Later that day, she hadn’t been able to get the memory of his smile out of her head. In a way, Tenko supposed she was glad that Rantaro of all people agreed to be her partner, despite the wariness that she still felt around him. He _did_ have a nice smile.

Now she stood at his door, her hand shaking with uncharacteristic nerves that prevented her from knocking on it. She wasn’t scared, she _definitely_ was not, but she hadn’t expected to ever be at a guy’s house for any reason. Rantaro had assured her that they wouldn’t be alone though, and that he had several little sisters who would probably be all over her, bugging them both and asking Tenko tons of questions about her ‘pretty hair’, as Rantaro had put it. The compliment had surprised her and made her feel nice despite her doubt that it could even be true.

After all, her hair was dry and her spit ends were _awful_. No one could think that it was pretty. Maybe Rantaro was a little stupid as well as being male.

She didn’t know how long she stood there with her hand held aloft. She didn’t even remember knocking. But apparently she did, and after a few moments of silence the door opened and a tiny girl poked her head out.

The girl was chewing on some bubble gum. Her hair was mousy-brown, but she had the same strikingly green eyes as Rantaro, which she now fixed on Tenko’s face, her head tilted back in order to look up at her. Tenko felt like a freakish giant like that.

“Are you Tenko?” the girl asked her.

She nodded, a little more vigorously than she intended. “Yes! My name is Tenko Chabashira! It is very nice to meet you!”

The girl curtsied–actually _curtsied_ , like a little lady! “Nice to meet you. I’m Koharu Amami,” she said, confirming Tenko’s suspicion that she was one of Rantaro’s sisters. The girl stared up at her face, something sparking in those eyes of hers. It almost made her feel self-conscious, before Koharu said, “Your eyeliner is super cool!”

“Ah?” Oh that embarrassed Tenko. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, unsure how to respond. She dipped her head in a tiny bow. “Thank you, Koharu.”

Her awkwardness didn’t seem to deter the girl any. Koharu continued to gaze up at her with gleaming eyes. “Can you do mine? Just like yours? Please, please, please?”

“Koharu, leave Tenko alone.” Rantaro appeared from behind the door, making Tenko jump.

Her immediate reaction was to get into a defensive stance and prepare to take the delinquent down. She squashed that reflex, but she still remained tense and alert.

Koharu pouted at her brother. “I’m not bothering her, I’m just asking if she’d do my eyeliner.”

Rantaro sighed. “Well, we’ve got to work on a project, so she can’t be doing your makeup right now. I can help you with it later if you want.”

She seemed to consider this. After a moment of deliberation, Koharu brightened up again and chirped out, “Ok! You better, or else I’ll put whipped cream in all your shoes!”

Koharu giggled as she said this. Giving Tenko a sweet smile, she curtsied and said her farewells. Then she was gone, leaving Tenko unable to relax and feeling very much out of her element here.

Rantaro turned his gaze onto her with a calm and apologetic smile. “Sorry about her if she was bothering you. I’m afraid we’ll have to deal with my sisters a lot today before we manage to finish this project. And then I’ll definitely have to do her eyeliner, or Koharu really will put whipped cream in my shoes, unfortunately.”

That odd thumping returned to her chest, her heart speeding up. Her cheeks warmed as she shook her head. “No, of course she wasn’t bothering me! Koharu is a perfect angel! I’d love your sisters to bother us–all of them!”

He chuckled at her earnestness. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. You’ll get to met all of them before you leave tonight, as well.”

Rantaro beckoned her inside, and she walked through the doorway with slightly more ease than she had initially felt on her way to the house. She even returned his smile with an uncertain one of her own.

“Thank you for having me over. Even if you are a degenerate male. I can’t wait to meet your sisters.”

It hadn’t been a joke, but he laughed again anyway. “Well, if you say so… thank you for agreeing to come here. It’s hard to leave the girls alone for too long when they know I’m in town. They just want to spend all the time they can with me.”

He led her through the house, to the massive dining room that looked like a place where kings and queens would hold huge dinner parties. Tenko said as much to Rantaro, a part of her feeling too plain and unworthy, yet excited to be in such a place.

“Glad you like it,” he said in response to her dazzled smile. “You know, if you don’t mind me saying, you have a very pretty smile, Tenko. It’d be nice to see it more often.”

The smile vanished from her face, replaced by a dark blush that quickly spread across her cheeks. “H-huh? What–what do you mean by that?!”

“Nothing at all, just an observation. Now, shall we get to work here?”

She gave him a wary look, wondering if he was just trying to save face and change the subject. Tenko couldn’t tell with how gentle and composed Rantaro was. After a minute, she looked away to drop her bag from her shoulder. “Alright, let’s do this!”

For the most part they worked in silence, poring over books, taking notes, occasionally conferring with each other. Sometimes Rantaro would lean over to help her with something that she wasn’t sure about. While Tenko was in no way stupid herself, it seemed that her partner had intimate knowledge of the histories and cultures of many different places. Tenko found herself (again) amazed by just how much he knew.

“Why does a _boy_ like you know so much about other places?” she asked. It came out insulting, a little irritated, yet she was genuinely impressed by it.

“Huh? How do I? Well, I travel a lot, so it’s good to learn about the places I go to, right? The least I can do is to learn their culture and language, and then I just pick up things here and there on local knowledge and history while I’m there talking to people who live there.”

“That’s… that’s really thoughtful of you.” _For a male_ , she nearly added, but for some reason she stopped herself.

…huh…

Rantaro was apparently popular among his siblings as well. While they worked, there seemed to be no end to the amount of girls that lived in the house, and they all needed something or other from their brother. They popped in and out of the dining room, sharing similarities but none of his sisters came in twice.

“I have twelve sisters, actually,” he told Tenko when she asked about it.

Her eyes grew wide. “That many?!”

He laughed, shrugging as if it wasn’t a big deal to him. “Yeah, I get that reaction a lot. But yes, I have that many.”

Tenko’s only siblings were her fellow aikido apprentices; she couldn’t imagine having any sisters, let alone twelve.

“They all seem to love you a lot,” she said, thinking about the last green-haired, starry-eyed little girl who had come in. She’d hopped right up into Rantaro’s lap and begged him for some ice cream, smooching his cheek when he finally shooed her off. Little Mayu her name was, and she wanted to know where Tenko got the ribbon in her hair from.

His eyes warmed immeasurably, a secret, soft smile on his lips. “Yeah… I love them a whole lot as well. Even when they get on my nerves, my sisters are really sweet and wonderful,” he said.

Her heart rate quickened at the sight, cheeks warming and chest aching with the wish to have such a loving look directed at her.

Oh. Oh no. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, thinking these thoughts about a boy of all things. Tenko needed time to process this.

She stood in a hurry, nearly knocking over her chair in her rush to leave. “Ex-excuse me, I gotta use the restroom!”

“Oh?” Rantaro blinked, surprised by the fervor of her sudden announcement. “Alright, I’ll keep looking through our books while you go.”

He directed her to the nearest bathroom and she made a mad dash for it. Once inside, the door shut and locked against any intrusions, she let out a huff. She braced her hands on the counter, leaning to examine her face in the mirror. Stray wisps of hair stuck to the sweat beading on her forehead. Her cheeks were flushed as if she’d been training for hours.

She frowned at her reflection. “Geez, Tenko, what’s wrong with you?”

A knock on the bathroom door made her start, squeaking. Did Rantaro come to check up on her already?!

“I’m in here!” she called, hoping that her voice didn’t sound as it did to her. “Not done yet!”

“Tenko?” It wasn’t Rantaro’s voice that answered her, but Koharu’s. “Are you alright? You almost knocked me over running down the hall like that.”

Startled guilt burst in her chest at those words. Without a second thought she flung open the door. “Oh, Koharu! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you at all, please forgive me for my horrible transgression!”

She couldn’t believe that she’d been so distracted by her own racing heart that she’d nearly injured a poor innocent girl.

“It’s ok,” Koharu said. She tilted her head, a little smile curling her lips. “But I’ll forgive you even more if you do my eyeliner for me. Like yours!”

“Sure.” Tenko smiled nervously. She could use a small break from the mess that Rantaro was repeatedly making her feel today. She stepped back. “Come in.”

Koharu’s pretty green eyes lit up. “Yay, thank you Tenko!”

She hopped up to sit on the bathroom counter and directed Tenko to the drawer where the makeup things were kept. The messiness of the drawer surprised Tenko, considering how orderly the rest of the house was. Koharu saw the look on her face and giggled, informing her that the younger ones often made such a mess of it immediately after it was tidied up, so the maid eventually gave up on her efforts to keep it clean and organized.

Tenko exclaimed her awe at their family having a maid. It sounded like something out of a storybook, or something that only rich celebrities or princesses would have access to. However, Koharu responded to her reaction with such bemusement that Tenko quickly shut up and decided to keep those thoughts to herself in embarrassment. There was such a divide between Tenko’s life experiences and those of the Amami family, she supposed. Things she thought were amazing and incredible were normal life to them.

After that, the girls were quiet together, with Tenko occasionally asking Koharu questions. How school went, if she did any extracurriculars, to which Koharu gave her only basic answers. For the most part they remained in a comfortable silence.

Until Koharu asked, “You’re Rantaro’s girlfriend, right?”

Tenko sputtered and jerked her hand, nearly dragging the eyeliner pen across unsuspecting Koharu’s face.

“Wh-wha-what?!” she exclaimed, her face burning at the insinuation. “What makes–what makes you say that?”

“Aren’t you?” Koharu blinked owlishly at her. “Rantaro likes you a lot though; he’s always talking about how strong and pretty you are, and what a kind heart you got. He said that we’d like you a lot, too.”

Funny for him to say something like that when she slammed him into the ground several times.

Koharu wasn’t finished though. “And you keep making eyes at him and blushing at him, too.”

“I _do_?!”

Her reaction made Koharu giggle. “You didn’t even know that? You _totally_ like my brother, and he likes you too. All me and my sisters can tell!”

That… as crazy as it was, it might actually explain the frantic thudding of her heart whenever he smiled at her.

How could that _be_ though? Rantaro was a male, someone that Tenko had always been taught to be wary of, to never trust. Yet thinking of the allure of Rantaro’s deep, green eyes, the mess of his hair, the loving way that he spoke of his sisters, Tenko couldn’t help but feel an odd intense fondness for him. She could think of more positive attributes for him than she could for any boy.

“That’s ridiculous,” she insisted, and ended the conversation by going back to finishing Koharu’s eyeliner.

When she finally rejoined Rantaro in the dining room, quite some time had passed. He glanced up as she came in, his fingers that had been tapping the open book stilling.

“You were gone for a while. Did one of the girls kidnap you?” he asked, the knowing tone of his voice implying that it had happened more than once ot himself.

Tenko was too distracted with her own thoughts to pay attention to whatever he said, however. “Uh-huh…”

Koharu’s words echoed through her head. She liked Rantaro? He liked her? There was no way, but why would Koharu lie about that to a girl that she’d just met? Not that she knew Koharu at all either and what she would or would not do, but Koharu had seemed so honest.

Yes, Tenko decided, she believed the girl’s words.

“Tenko, are you alright?”

Rantaro’s voice broke her out of her thoughts. She straightened up with a jolt. “Huh? Yes! Quite alright, very much so, I’ve never felt better in my life!”

His eyebrows furrowed. He frowned at her, and she worried that she might’ve said something weird just then.

Oh who was she kidding, of _course_ Tenko said something weird.

“You just seem distracted right now.”

Tenko swallowed. She was thinking too hard about all of this. She had to be more impulsive. Just reach out, and snatch whatever her heart felt was right! Even if her heart was a little bit unsure, she just had to not think about it. And speak!

“I want you to go out with me!” she blurted out, her heart pounding in her ears.

Her eyes widened. Oh dear, that was super embarrassing to have said.

Rantaro had frozen too, his own eyes mirroring hers. After a moment or two, he let out a nervous chuckle. “Oh you… want to go somewhere? It _is_ pretty stuffy in here, I admit,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.

“No! No, I don’t mean–. Ugh.” Geez! How could a guy misunderstand her like this?! They were all supposed to be perverse opportunists, just waiting for the chance she offered willingly to Rantaro now. “I want… you to go _out_ with me! On a date! Be-because I, I love you!”

Wait. Panic flitted across her expression. No, that was way too strong! Flushing bright red, she rushed to elaborate.

“I, I mean! I mean like you! I _like_ you!” _Dammit_.

Amazingly, pink dusted Rantaro’s cheeks as well. He stared at her, wide-eyed, open-mouthed. The lack of response made her self-conscious. She shifted her weight onto one foot, growing more anxious as time passed.

“Well? Say something already!” She couldn’t take the silence.

“Oh, well… I just didn’t expect this…” Rantaro hesitated, then said, “…well, if you really feel that way, then I’d love to go on a date with you. I’ve actually liked you for a while now.”

A while? How had she never noticed?

“Geez, you should learn to speak for mind more! Don’t keep something important like that hidden!” Although if not for Koharu, Tenko might’ve never realized how she felt for Rantaro herself. Maybe it was better than he hadn’t confessed beforehand.

She could still hardly believe the feelings she’d developed, for a man of all people. Although, if she had to fall for one, then she supposed hat Rantaro was probably better than any man she could think of.

“Anyway, that’s good. It’s… it’s a date then!"


	2. Sometimes you just gotta imagine suplexing your date in case they affirm your fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenko meets up with her date.

Tenko had never been on a date before. She’d stood in front of her closet for ages, anxiously braiding and rebraiding her hair as she scanned its contents. Nothing seemed… right. Or if it did, she couldn’t tell. What did someone wear on a date anyway? How casual should she be? How _fancy_? And would Rantaro care either way?

She shook her head hard, stomping her foot as if to snuff out those insecure thoughts beneath it. It didn’t matter what he thought! Tenko could wear whatever she wanted, and if he didn’t like it then he could just try and say something to her. She’d have him on the ground so fast that he wouldn’t even be able to blink.

Playing with her hair again, she sighed. Maybe she shouldn’t be thinking of harming her date in any way, especially considering that Tenko was the one who asked him out to begin with. Except for when he tried doing something nasty to her. _If_. Rather, _if_ he tried something.

Right! That settled that then. She would wear whatever she wanted, and Rantaro could take it or leave it. She wasn’t about to change herself from some degenerate, no matter how good-looking he was.

With that in mind, Tenko sifted through her closet until she found a blouse that she’d snagged on sale a while back, with fake gems around the collar that sparkled under the light, and some shorts that matched. The shine of the gems made her feel glamorous, so if Rantaro wasn’t dazzled by it then he just had poor fashion taste.

Then once she braided her hair for the last time and stuffed her feet into some sneakers, Tenko was ready and out the door with a smile on her face.

Now that she was on her way to meet Rantaro, she was actually rather excited for the date. It was her first one, and she greatly looked forward to experiencing one herself. Her heart danced in her chest. It’d be fun! They were going to dinner and to see a movie, so at least the latter part would be enjoyable regardless of how Rantaro was on a date. She always had fun watching movies.

Then a sudden thought occurred to her that stopped her in her tracks.

“What if he tries to kiss me?” she murmured to herself, her wide-eyed gaze falling to the ground. The thought sent prickling fear down the back of her neck. As much as she wanted to try this dating thing, the idea of kissing someone repulsed her. Her earlier anxiety returned, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to go forward with the date so much anymore.

Eventually Tenko managed to get herself moving again, but it wasn’t without a significant amount of apprehension. By the time she saw Rantaro waiting at their agreed-upon meeting place, she’d managed to work her thoughts up into a frenzy. If he kissed her… was she just supposed to let that happen? Then after that…

“Wow, you look really nice, Tenko.” Rantaro’s voice jolted her out of her thoughts.

“Huh? I’m–?” Hurriedly she tried to compose herself, smoothing her hands out over her shirt. “Um, thank you. You–you do, too.”

She wasn’t just saying that to be polite or to save face, either. Rantaro looked almost beautiful in his pressed shirt and slacks that made Tenko feel under dressed. He’d obviously made an attempt at taming his hair, although it insisted on sticking up even so, and something about his shiny ear piercings in the light of the setting sun made his eyes stand out more than usual. A blush rose to her cheeks. However she bit her lip, still anxious. Her thoughts from her walk over there still worried her.

“But don’t think that means you can try anything! Got it degen–uh, Rantaro,” she warned, holding her hands up defensively.

He smiled at her reassuringly, unfazed by her behavior. “Of course, I’m not going to do anything that you aren’t comfortable with. I promise,” he told her.

A beat passed; she scanned his face for any hint of dishonesty. When she found none there, her shoulders relaxed from the stiff tension and she let her hands drop back down to her sides. She quickly straightened up, self-conscious of the awkward smile on her face. “Good. Good then, thank you.”

After that, she felt a lot easier being at Rantaro’s side. It might be a fun first date after all, she thought with a pleasant warmth spreading through her chest. Then Rantaro gave her a smile that made her heart race to witness.

“Well then, shall we get going?”


End file.
